Motorists in Sharjah, the third-largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates, soon will be able to renew their parking smart cards and pay fines at self-service machines in the city’s malls, a spokesperson for the Sharjah Municipality Transport and Freight Department tells PaymentsSource.
The department issues a prepaid smart card for parking needs in the city. Consumers insert the card into parking meters, which validates the card for the requested parking time by deducting the relevant fare.
“We will set up nine self-service machines by the end of this year,” the spokesperson says. “We will begin with two machines this month that will be set up in two shopping centers.”
The machines, which will cost 1 million dirham (US$272,000 or 202,000 euros) in total, will enable motorists to preload funds into their prepaid card account, renew their parking cards and transfer funds to another person’s card, according to the spokesperson.
“The payments for these can be made [using] an ATM card or a credit card,” he says, adding consumers pay no additional charges when using the self-service machines.
